Wednesday, 28 December 2016

So many well-known figures have toppled this year that as we approach December 31 people are almost willing more to cark it just for the narrative. But was 2016 really the worst year in living memory for famous people? As you may have gathered from the title of this post, yes.

We worked with scientists from the Ponds Institute to scientifically rank the Celebrity Death Impact™ of every year since 2000. By trawling the deaths section of Wikipedia's Year in Review pages we compiled the top 20 celebrity passings, assigned them a rating out of 10 based on their influence and gave 3, 5 or 7 shock points depending on whether the death was expected, plausible due to age/circumstances, or made us sit up and go "cor blimey, that's unusual".

Sometimes (as you will no doubt quickly realise) it was a struggle to find 20, sometimes there were a dozen contenders for the last spot - so if your favourite didn't get a mention you can be comforted by knowing they wouldn't have changed the overall score.

Your top 17 is as follows - and if there's any big names who I've missed please let me know and I'll reassess. Out of respect to the people involved we won't be revealing individual ratings. It should also be noted that not all the names considered were people that you'd necessarily want to keep alive, but who am I to tell you how to feel about Idi Amin?

When I had to include a wrestler well known for using his incredible bulk to sit on people I knew this year was going to struggle. An overall lack of star power and shock value sees it finish at the bottom of the rankings by some considerable margin.

The top star power of Saddam Hussein, and the instance on dispatching him on December 30 instead of doing the Australian thing and skiving off until early January, was the saving grace of an otherwise weak year for influence. Dual assassinations and a rogue stingray provided our highest shock points score so far, but all in all a slow season.

With a diverse field containing two kings, a pope, a Nazi hunter, the guy who invented the Back To The Future Car and Mr Miyagi it's no surprise that this year scored what is to date our highest influence rating. Where it loses out is in shock value, with not one surprise ending to be had by the contenders.

A light on year for influence given a significant kick along by a pair of royals and several out of the blue dismissals. Respectable mid-table finish given that I was scraping for a top 20 and had to include both dog related figures Davey Boy Smith and Linda Lovelace.9th place - 2009Influence: 61Shock: 100Total: 161 pointsDeaths considered: Corazon Aquino, Bea Arthur, JG Ballard, David Carradine, Walter Cronkite, Dom DeLuise, Farrah Fawcett, John Hughes, Michael Jackson, Maurice, Jarre, Jack Kemp, Ted Kennedy, Al Martino, Patrick McGoohan, Les Paul, Natasha Richardson, Bobby Robson, Patrick Swayze, John Updike, Abdurrahman Wahid

A year that finished equal second last on influence alone is nearly boosted into the top eight courtesy of its equal first shock rating. Surprise passings, including Michael Jackson and that guy out of Kill Bill in a potential stranglewank scenario pushed this year higher than it would have gone on merit alone.

Remember back to an era where celebrities never passed away and... oh, it was just 12 month ago when we were on the verge of the top four. Try telling the people listed above that 2016 was a worse year (spoiler - you won't get very far).Equal 5th place - 2013Influence: 79Shock: 98Total: 177 pointsDeaths considered: Ronnie Biggs, JJ Cale, Hugo Chavez, Tom Clancy, Ray Dolby, David Frost, James Gandolfini, George Jones, Nelson Mandela, Ray Manzarek, Cory Monteith, Tommy Morrison, Ken Norton, Peter O'Toole, Lou Reed, Mel Smith, Jean Stapleton, Margaret Thatcher, Rafael Jorge Videla, Paul Walker
This study is not like a music festival, you can't get away with a couple of massive headliners if the rest of the lineup isn't pulling their weight. Neither was 2013's case helped by the complete lack of surprise at some of the big name passings. Still, a strong effort and worthy of its top five finish even if I had to scrape for a 20th man and ended up including the guy who played Tommy Gunn in Rocky V.4th place - 2003Influence: 92Shock: 92Total: 184Deaths considered: Idi Amin, Charles Bronson, June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash, Marc Vivien-Foe, Maurice Gibb, Curt Hennig, Katherine Hepburn, Bob Hope, Qusay Hussein, Uday Hussein, Elia Kazan, Herbie Mann, Robert Palmer, Gregory Peck, Nina Simone, Elliot Smith, Robert Stack, Barry White, Warren Zevon
The perfect balance of influence and shock, a worthy top four finish and a double chance going into the finals. Not the most star-studded cast considering the guy from Unsolved Mysteries and Mr. Perfect are playing the Clay Sampson style role of accidental premiership players but consistency the key.3rd place - 2014Influence: 88Shock: 98Total: 186 points

Oh so close for a year that took its fair share of victims but has been forgotten in the wake of people telling 2016 to fuck off and die. Certainly not the highest influence, but the shock value of a few completely random demises leaves it on the podium.2nd place - 2011Influence: 90Shock: 98Total: 188 pointsDeaths considered: Seve Ballesteros, Osama Bin Laden, Nate Dogg, Peter Falk, Betty Ford, Joe Frazier, Muammar Gadaffi, Vaclav Havel, Gil-Scott Heron, Steve Jobs, Kim Il-Jong, Sidney Lumet, Pete Postlethwaite, Gerry Rafferty, Jane Russell, Ken Russell, Randy Savage, Gary Speed, Elizabeth Taylor, Amy Winehouse

The mastermind behind 9/11, a pair of brutal dictators and the guy who did Stuck In The Middle With You together at last. I suspect Gerry would sit on the bench next to Nate Dogg for most of the day in a cast like this, with well known players on every line. All 20 players made a positive contribution to the score in one way or another, and we'll be forwarding a silver medal on to all their next of kin.1st place - 2016Influence: 106Shock: 88Total: 194 pointsDeaths considered: Muhammad Ali, Boutrous Boutros-Ghali, David Bowie, Fidel Castro, Leonard Cohen, Johan Cruyff, Carrie Fisher, Glenn Frey, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Merle Haggard, Joao Havelange, Harper Lee, George Martin, George Michael, Arnold Palmer, Shimon Peres, Prince, Nancy Reagan, Alan Rickman, Gary Shandling
And here we are, the year where seemingly the only celebrity who didn't kick it was the Grim Reaper himself. The strange thing is that even though 2016 thumped the influence level of all other seasons by a massive margin it almost lost due to lack of shock value - lower than the nine spots below it. Maybe everything just feels more shocking when it suddenly appears on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram simultaneously, but as much as you love a celebrity it's hard to call it a top shelf shocker when a 70-year-old who spent years having cocaine for breakfast pulls the plug.